Testing the Waters of Economic Liberty

"In 1927, seven years before the board game was created, Washington state decided to play monopoly. It gave a private interest the exclusive right to operate a ferry on 55-mile-long Lake Chelan in the northern Cascade Mountains. It apparently will defend this folly until Judgment Day, when state officials will get an earful from the Creator who — we have Jefferson’s word for this — endowed everyone, including Jim and Cliff Courtney, with the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Comments

Why would anybody who esteems government-protected property rights in Land have a problem with government-protected property rights on Water?

The property right to operate the ferry is a big government enTITLEment, just like creating artificial borders on the surface of the earth is a Land enTITLEment program that grants monopoly-use-rights (often called "property rights") to parcel holders, and restricts the free movement of Non-State societies to forage and hunt the land.

Remember, without big government guns, there are no "property rights" to vast tracts of agricultural Land. (I'm quite familiar with the libertarian canon that says different, and that you have many fantasies about how to enforce property rights without the State part of agricultural-City-Statism, but they are just that, make-believe stories.)

State/government or no state/government, if you mess with my grain crops you're going to have troubles.
You might want to cool it with the predictions of the future. I'm pretty sure that you're not all-knowing and the pretense is embarassingly ignorant.

Another example of this on a larger scale would be the Jones Act (Merchant Maritime Act). The restriction of "US flag" vessels for US territories greatly impedes competition and forces prices upward for everyone, especially in places like Hawaii where only US flag carriers are permitted to operate. Asian carriers would have swept up all of the Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Caribbean business decades ago without this restriction. Not surprisingly, the industries that lobbied for this type of regulation were the railroads and trucking companies, much as you'd expect with similar tariffs and restrictions. However, somewhat more surprising (but not really when you understand how large companies use government) the coastal and ocean carriers didn't put up any protest. US carriers dominated the steamship market in the days of the Jones Act. This has led to the greatest collusion among the carriers that you can imagine and practices that make the mafia look down-right respectable by comparison.